


in the spirit of honesty

by februyuri



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 15, Supernatural Coda, these old dudes talk abt their feelings ok we love to see it, wrote this before i found out when/how dean prays to cas in s15 but im down either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22206730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/februyuri/pseuds/februyuri
Summary: It’s easier sometimes for Dean to say what he means when he doesn’t have to look someone in the face. Prayer can be like that; you can just ramble into the ether until, eventually, something happens, or (more likely) something doesn’t. It’s cowardly, maybe, but it’s honest.Dean manages a quick prayer to Cas, laying down half of the crap he’d been carrying and loading it onto his best friend but it works, apparently, and Cas comes back, with some secrets of his own.In the spirit of fairness, these are things for Cas to cop to, but Dean doesn’t realize that Cas doesn’t have half the problems Dean does with saying what’s on his mind. Even if that includes telling Dean that he’s in love with him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 48





	in the spirit of honesty

**Author's Note:**

> cw: alcohol, food, violence (barely)

(i)

After Cas left for the nth time, the sad look he’d tossed behind him, haunted and lonely, burnt itself in Dean’s brain. Even just seeing Cas that miserable rang sharp and stayed lodged like a splinter in Dean’s chest for hours after Cas’s shitty car pulled out onto the road.

Cas wasn’t going to beg his way back, and Dean could spend the rest of his short life resenting him for leaving, but he couldn’t deny that he wasn’t giving Cas any reason to stay.

Not that this would help, either. But Cas at least deserved to know what Dean was too much of a coward to say to his face. That Dean still thought—angry as he still was with Cas—that him, Sam, and Cas, were better together than apart. And that that was why, that had _always_ been why, Dean had ever felt betrayed by Cas. Because Cas would always nod his head like he agreed, then go off on his own and leave Dean and Sam with the fallout.

And even that wasn’t entirely fair. Because Sam was always going to be fine, especially now that he had Eileen. Their domestic bliss was enough to make Dean want to christen the Bunker with his brain matter. Cas ditching, ignoring Sam up until the moment where it actually mattered, hell—Cas _dying_ never bothered Sam as much as it bothered Dean. Sam could always roll with the punches. But well, Dean had never quite figured that out, and the blows just kept coming.

Sam and Eileen were off somewhere—probably getting couples’ mani-pedis. Now that Cas was gone too, it was just Dean and the whiskey he’d poured himself. He’d set the bottle right next to his glass, just in case, as he considered the next step. Liquid courage hadn’t done him much good. He was still scared shitless.

But Dean Winchester had saved the world, more than once. He could do this. He cleared the pipes before he spoke, fingers folding and unfolding by his side, not sure what to do with his hands. Whether he should put them together to pray, he’d never really had to before.

“Hey Cas,” Dean tried, regretting the words as he said them. He winced. But he pushed forward. “Just wanted to say that. You gotta know that I don’t … I never really blamed you for … what happened. I mean,” Christ, this was hard.

Dean poured himself another drink, chasing it down quick with a hiss and sigh, hoping that the words would come loose with the liquor. He felt dizzy and ashamed, but in there somewhere he had to figure out what to say. Cas didn’t have to answer Sam’s calls or texts, but he’d have to listen to Dean’s prayers, if his Grace was still up to snuff. Might as well make it a good one.

“What happened to Mary,” Dean tried again, and it hurt still to even say her name. “I know you—if you’d known, you’d—” Drinking had been a mistake. Dean really didn’t want to cry. He scrubbed at his eyes.

“Hell, with God pulling the strings, things probably still would’ve ended the same way no matter what you did.” Dean didn’t know if that was enough. “I needed someone to blame and it wasn’t fair that it was you,” he concluded. For good measure, he added, “Sorry.” And poured himself another drink.

Losing Mary, the first time around, was a wound that had never healed. He’d grown up carrying around an old cut, bandaging it lightly to keep the dust and grit out, nursing a bruise. This was different. He’d known her, _really_ known her. He hadn’t been just a keeper of her memory. He’d been her son, for real. A friend. A stone in her pocket, but she’d loved him.

Even when Cas had said his little speech, Dean had known then that it hadn’t been Cas’s fault, not really. And God had had more than a minor role to play, Amara had given him his mom and Chuck had taken her right back again. Held her as bait. Dean still didn’t know how much responsibility he could put on Cas for holding back what he’d known about Jack but then—Cas was the one who’d said that his decisions were real.

And if that was the case, if free will still meant anything, then Cas was the one who’d made that choice. Wasn’t his fault but. Dean wasn’t done. Something was festering beneath his ribs, angry and empty and ugly. This had started before Mary had been killed. Hell, before she’d been brought back. Cas pulling away, doing his own thing. Maybe it all had just been years and years of Chuck’s foreshadowing. Baked into Cas’s system.

“I get why you lied,” Dean said, suddenly sounding angry to his own ears. “You were— _hoping_. Wanted us to be a family.” Which was why Cas was gone now, Dean guessed. Jack dead, family over. “But, if we _were_ a family,” Dean tried, “then why didn’t you _talk_ to us about what was happening to him?”

For all of Cas’s claims of family, he’d never quite got that memo. But then, if Cas’s claim to family was Dean and Sam, or even Dean and Mary, then … then it almost made sense. Maybe that was the point. That they all should’ve changed. Dean wanted to pretend that he hadn’t noticed that this, this _family_ , wasn’t working. But Dean didn’t know if it ever had.

“And I’m not saying that’s all on you.” Dean could’ve pulled his weight too, somehow— _somehow_ made it more obvious to Cas that Jack, while they’d loved him, _hadn’t_ been what had made them a family. But Dean hadn’t been doing such a great job of demonstrating that lately either, if he ever had been.

Dean regretted drinking so much so fast. He looked at that amber bottle of whiskey, winking at him from across the table, and knew he had to cut himself off. “Actually, I’m saying that it _wasn’t_ on you,” Dean offered, not even sure if he was praying anymore, or just talking to the air.

Maybe Cas’s Grace had finally gone caput, and couldn’t hear him, Dean’s drunken confessional. “He was our kid, too. You couldn’t have handled what happened by yourself. You _couldn’t_ have fixed it, or prevented what happened, by yourself. And maybe it was always going to play out that way, but if we were a family, you should’ve come to us. And we’d cross that bridge together. We _all_ lost him, and we lost Mary, and now _you’re_ —” Dean cut himself off.

“Christ,” Dean said, horribly drunk. He could feel the words like they were something real under his skin. He just wanted Cas back. And that was the awful, ugly truth of it. That Dean just missed him. And these weeks had just made it more apparent.

He’d never wanted, never expected, Cas to leave, even if caring about Cas was something so beyond Dean’s control that it scared him sometimes. That Sam could deal with Cas’s presence and absence perfectly fine but Dean—Dean was always getting crushed under the perpetual tides of Cas’s movement. He was sick to hell of caring. But Dean could see now there was no other way. He couldn’t opt out. And Cas at least should know that.

“I’ll,” Dean tried again, putting his empty glass in the sink, and moving back to his bedroom to crash. “I’ll see you around, man.” Because at least that was the truth.

(ii)

And he did. Not exactly when he wanted it the most, but probably when he needed him. Dean was flat on his back, with a demon ready to act out some petty revenge, when Cas showed up, pressed a hand to the guy’s forehead, and burned his lights out. Dean squinted behind his hands until the room went dark again, then let out a sigh, flopping to the floor.

“Hello Dean,” Cas spoke up from six feet above Dean’s head.

“Good to see you, Cas,” Dean admitted, kind of guarded still. Sober, he’d gotten angrier with Cas’s radio silence, but seeing Cas now had a lot of that draining away. He pulled himself up to stand on his two feet, a little woozy from having been thrown around. He reached up and touched something wet on his forehead. Apparently, he’d gotten a little banged up.

Cas let out a not so subtle cough. “Would you, uh—like me to help with that?” he asked, awkwardly hovering near Dean, still keeping about three feet between them at a time.

“With your Grace?” Dean asked, looking Cas over, not intending to sound so judgmental. He was just worried that Cas snuffing that demon wouldn’t leave enough left over, given what Cas had said about his Grace before he’d left.

“Let me,” Cas said, something sharp and irritated in his eyes. Dean let him. Let Cas get close, get his hand on Dean, two fingers on his forehead, a firm press of the pads of his index and middle. Probably didn’t have the juice enough to heal him without touching him.

As Dean felt his skin knit up he realized just how long it had been since Cas had really touched him. Since they’d even been this close to each other. Something had changed, after Purgatory, after Dean’s prayer. When Dean took a breath, he tried to keep it from shaking in his chest.

“Thanks,” he offered, voice rough, words scratching his throat on the way out. Cas took his hand back, awkwardly retracting it to his side. He turned away from Dean and put a few paces between them.

“Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” he offered. Then he seemed to wince, like he’d just admitted to a mistake.

“You’re here now,” Dean replied with something like forgiveness. Cas nodded in agreement, slow and measured. Awkward as hell. But Cas wasn’t going anywhere. Not now anyway.

“Can you, uh,” Dean stumbled, glancing down at the body. “Give me a hand?” Cas’s eyes flickered over to Dean’s, wide and blue. He nodded, looking away again.

After stuffing the body in the trunk, Dean turned back to Cas, who still hadn’t vanished with a flap of his wings. Not that he could, anymore. In all honesty, Dean had come to appreciate the fact that Cas couldn’t up and vanish whenever he wanted to the way he’d been able to at full capacity. That didn’t mean that Cas still couldn’t leave, as Dean was always learning.

“Did you, uh—hear me?” Dean asked, voice gruff to keep himself from betraying how awkward his words were. Cas nodded, keeping his eyes on the horizon somewhere.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. Dean felt his skin flush, hot and itchy.

“Right,” Dean said.

“I …” Cas offered, and Dean’s ears pricked up. “I want to thank you.”

“Yeah?” Dean said.

“It put things in perspective,” Cas said, still guarded.

“Well,” Dean said. He’d been pretty drunk, and Cas’d probably noticed it, but, “I meant what I said. Wasn’t fair for me to put all that on you. And, I’m sorry.”

Cas nodded, squinting, earnest. “I’m sorry, too.” Dean felt like they’d had this conversation a thousand times before. They were always being sorry, and never changing a goddamn thing. Dean couldn’t figure out if it mattered or not, his emotions were trapped between excitement and dread to see Cas.

“So, you back now?” Dean asked, trying not to sound hopeful. Cas could tail him back to Kansas if he wanted.

“I’m not sure,” Cas said instead. Honest. For a change.

“Well,” Dean said, disappointment welling up thick. “At least you’re being upfront about it.” Cas gave him a dirty look and Dean was tempted to laugh it off, make it clear that it was a joke. But it wasn’t.

“Dean, are you sure you even want me back?” Cas asked. Dean opened his mouth, startled.

Cas had heard his prayers. He’d have to know on some level that that was true but. It was one thing for Dean to pray out in the ether for Cas’s understanding than to answer a question like this, like this was some breakup and Dean was in the doghouse. 

Cas steeled himself. “I’ll rephrase. _What_ do you want from me?” Dean swallowed his words with a click. That was an easy thing to answer.

“The truth, for starters,” Dean said, standing up taller. “Because I don’t …” Dean didn’t know what the hell was going on. What was real, what was Chuck. “What happened wasn’t the first time you went AWOL.” Cas flinched because it was the truth. “And after all that, I don’t know what else you’re hiding from me, man.”

He was tired of shoes dropping all the goddamn time. He met Cas’s eyes for once, wordlessly pleading that Cas just. Understand. And Cas seemed to, shifting from one foot to the other.

“When … Jack died, I made a deal with the Empty,” Cas dropped. Of course. Of course he had. Dean pulled off, almost hissing from pain and irritation. He hadn’t actually wanted to think that this was true, that Cas was still hiding things from him.

“What was it?” Dean asked. He’d been so _sure_ that for once things had just worked out for them but no. It had been Cas, pulling strings, behind their backs, yet again.

“It was a life for a life, Dean.”

“So, that means,” Dean realized, stomach dropping, anger converting to shock.

“The Empty is not much of a tactician,” Cas said softly. He smirked a little, but he looked exhausted. “The deal is that … if I ever become happy, that’s when I’ll be taken.” That was a gut punch. “It’s not bound to happen any time soon, if ever. And … at the rate my Grace is going, I imagine I’ll die before the Empty can come collect.”

“Why …” Dean said, still caught on the situation. “Why didn’t you _tell_ us?” That was their song. “We could’ve figured something out. We _can_ figure something out.”

“You can’t,” Cas said simply. “And I didn’t want to burden you with the knowledge.”

“Right,” Dean replied, teeth grinding. “Good job on that.”

“I’m not finished,” Cas warned.

“Of course not,” Dean said. “What else you got?”

Cas’s jaw clenched, the muscles around his cheek pulling tight with irritation, like he was offended that Dean would even ask.

“I never told you I was in love with you.”

Dean’s mouth opened but he couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard Cas properly. But Cas just kept staring at Dean head on, a little irked muscle in his jaw flickering. “Say that again?” Dean asked, voice coming out hoarse and unsteady. Cas looked away.

“In the spirit of honesty,” he said, all defiance giving away to something closer to shame, like he already regretted bringing it up. “I love you.”

He’d said those words before, bleeding to death in a barn, and he’d looked just as unhappy then as he looked now.

“That’s,” Dean started, almost laughing. “You don’t …”

“I’m not asking you for anything, I’m just telling you the truth,” Cas snapped. “At least pay me the respect of believing me.”

“Okay,” Dean tried. He really did. “So, you … _you_ think …”

Cas shook his head, suddenly annoyed. “That’s all I was keeping from you, Dean,” he said. “I … didn’t want to put undue stress on you or our relationship but, well.” He didn’t look anything like the salesman his body had once been. He looked ancient and exhausted. “There’s nothing to salvage here, anyway.”

Dean didn’t know what to think. So, Cas was … apparently in love with him. In _love._ Well, he was an angel, still. They weren’t big on the whole love thing. Angels and humans weren’t meant to mix. But then, Cas had always been one to buck rules. And people had always said … even _Dean_ had made that joke.

“That’s it?” Dean asked at last.

Cas let out a small, humourless chuckle. “Yes,” he said. He wasn’t hiding anything else. He was dying, and he was in love with Dean. Couldn’t get much worse than that. “So, Dean,” Cas asked, casual as anything, like he was telling a joke, though there was a grain of uncertainty in is voice that betrayed him, “do you want me back?”

“Cas,” Dean started promising. “About the Empty. We’ll figure something out.”

“Don’t,” Cas said, the roughness of his voice startling Dean out of his thoughts. “I made my choice. We have much larger problems to worry about. And as I’ve always said … you can’t save everyone … especially when they don’t want to be saved.”

“Well, as I’ve always said, that’s _bull_ ,” Dean declared, loud and strong. “We’ll figure something out.”

“We?” Cas asked, skeptical.

“If you don’t duck out again,” Dean said, maybe a little cruel, considering Cas had just declared his love for him. Cas set his jaw.

“I can’t stay, Dean,” he said. And, of course, he never could.

“Right,” Dean just kept saying, swallowing down his disappointment.

“I’m meeting Claire tomorrow,” Cas explained, softer now. “She’s been seeing signs relating to Kaia, and she’s worried. I was just passing through.”

Cas’s other kid. Dean nodded. “Right,” he repeated.

“It’s perhaps—what’s the phrase—‘small beans’, compared to God,” Cas said, voice low and growly. “But it matters to her and I don’t think I’d be any more helpful here.” Dean somehow wanted to argue because Cas would be helpful here, but he didn’t want to keep him from Claire.

“Well, tell her I said hi,” Dean said. Cas’s lips twitched, almost like he was close to giving Dean a smile.

“I will,” he offered, solemn.

“And after that?” Dean tried, words tumbling out without him checking them.

Cas was quiet for a moment. Then said, “I’m not sure.” Dean just couldn’t stop staring at him. He hadn’t taken Cas for the love ‘em and leave ‘em type, but apparently he’d still not given Cas enough reason to stick around.

“Well,” Dean said, trying not to sound choked. “We still got room back at the Bunker.”

“Dean, I …” Cas started, and then stopped. His expression softened from concern into something guarded but maybe a little hopeful. “Thank you.” Dean glanced away.

“What for, man?” he mumbled. That room was always going to be Cas’s, no matter how little he used it.

“You … I didn’t expect you’d take my confession in stride,” Cas admitted.

“Well, we’re going to fix it,” Dean said, no matter what Cas thought about it. They were fighting God, the Empty was small fry. Cas looked at him curiously.

“I wasn’t talking about my deal,” he said. Right. The whole love thing. Dean still didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to say about that. Still hadn’t sunk in that that’s what Cas thought. He’d almost needed Cas to confirm that Dean hadn’t misheard him somehow.

Cas seemed to realize this, withdrawing himself. “Claire’s expecting me,” he said, and with a nod of his head, took his leave, heading back to his ugly continental.

“Yeah,” Dean said breathlessly. He rapped his knuckles on the trunking, considering the body inside, feeling his back and knees start to ache just thinking about the dig.

(iii)

Dean found his way back to the Bunker sometime in the evening hours. Sam and Eileen had made dinner together, Sam was very proud about the joint effort, and Dean helped himself to the survivors. Mac ‘n’ cheese wasn’t all that complicated, but Dean didn’t have the heart to be an asshole and he was still kind of shell-shocked from the day.

Not bothering with a shower, he washed his hands from the dirt and grime of the fight, and microwaved himself a plate, standing by the counter while Sam sat at the table, idly flipping through some books like the nerd that he was.

Sam was apparently the one who’d pointed Cas in the direction of Dean’s hunt, since they’d apparently been on speaking terms. Dean had never bothered texting Cas after Cas had left, letting Sammy blow up his phone instead, but Sam had forgiven Cas ignoring him like it was nothing.

“Saw Cas on the hunt,” Dean said. “He healed me up.”

“Yeah?” Sam asked, perking up at that. “You two—uh, good now?”

“Yeah,” Dean said, foraging through the pantry for a beer and setting it on the counter as he waited for his mac to warm through. “Golden.”

“I’m glad that you two have, uh— _made up_ ,” Sam said. And Dean really, really hated the way made it sound like him and Cas had been together at some point.

“Well, it’s not like we’re much better off,” Dean mumbled, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand, trying to massage the tension building in his temples. “Turns out the reason why Jack had come back to life last year was because Cas had made a deal with the Empty.”

“Oh,” Sam said, sitting back at the table, just as shocked as Dean had been. “Damn. What kind of deal?”

“The kind where the Empty gets Cas when it feels like it,” Dean said, taking his plate out of the microwave, hot to the touch though. “Apparently the Empty likes to play with its food.”

Sam massaged his head in his hand. “Me and Eileen will look into it tomorrow.” Dean nodded, tension settling in his chest. As much as he’d blustered at Cas about how they’d fix this, now that Sam was offering Dean didn’t know where to start. But tomorrow. They could start tomorrow. While trying to kill God. Save Cas, kill God. Easy wins.

“Still, it’s nice that he’s back,” Sam said, already pulling up some books to go through. “I mean. He is, right?” Dean had no idea where Cas was now. Maybe with Claire, maybe not.

“Sure, it’s nice,” he allowed. “Only that he’s convinced that he’s in love with me,” Dean said, words tripping out sour and wrong from his mouth. Sam didn’t even look up from the pages in front of him. After a few seconds of silence, Sam took a sip of tea, glancing over at his brother with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” he asked, like he’d expected Dean to keep going.

“I mean,” Dean blustered. “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

Sam let out a sigh, weary like the crack and groan of an old bridge, turning around in his seat to face Dean more directly. “Well, what did you say?” Sam asked.

All Dean could think to say was, “What?” He’d expected Sam would at least have some kind of reaction, not play psychotherapist.

“I mean, it’s not like Cas is super big on the love confessions,” Sam said, almost laughing, casual as Aloha Friday.

“Yeah,” Dean said, getting back on track. The day had been long but Dean was suddenly antsy. “Exactly. _Exactly._ He doesn’t know what the hell he copped to. How could he?” Dean would’ve felt bad for him if he wasn’t so thrown by it all.

“What did you say to him?” Sam asked, sounding concerned all of a sudden.

“I said we, I said we’d figure out what to do with the Empty,” Dean said, surprised that Sam had somehow skipped over the obvious.

“I mean,” Sam said prissily. “About … you two.” Dean never should’ve told him.

“There’s nothing to say,” Dean said, needing a drink.

“Uh,” Sam started with a laugh, obviously disagreeing. While Dean couldn’t have sat on that, he was already regretting telling Sam.

“Listen, whatever he feels, or _thinks_ he feels,” Dean interrupted, finding his beer and waving it around to punctuate his points, “it’s not my problem.” Cas at least seemed to get that, even if Sam didn’t.

“If he’s got feelings for you, maybe don’t blame him for that?” Sam offered.

“Blame him? I don’t _blame_ him,” Dean spat out. “It’s not his fault he imprinted on me like a baby duck.”

Sam looked at Dean disapprovingly. Because his love life was going so great.

“Just leave it, Sammy,” Dean muttered, tired of the conversation. He pried open the cap, grabbed his plate of mac ‘n’ cheese in his free hand, and left Sam alone in the kitchen.

(iv)

Dean always figured the reason Cas made the wrong move because he was an angel. Because he didn’t get the intricacies of what it was to be human. But the older Dean got the more he could see that Cas’s mistakes were much more human than anything else. Which was what Michael called him out on, the moment he opened his mouth about it.

Things had been tense, since then. Running into Cas, working with him. It had almost come up again, between Sam and the two of them, but Dean had nipped it in the bud with a well-timed, “No, we’re not starting that up again.” Sam had bitched about it, but Cas had rolled his eyes so hard his whole body moved with it, turning away from Dean and picking up the fight, so annoyed that Dean quietly doubted his confession all over again.

But eventually, between Kaia, and Jody, and everything else that was happening, Dean and Cas had found themselves in a moment of peace. Alone with a bottle of scotch and some moments of silence, they’d come to some sort of quiet companionship that they’d sometimes managed when things had been good, or at least better than they were now.

Dean turned to Cas. “Uh, out of curiosity,” he said before he could stop himself. Then he stopped himself.

Cas was quiet. “What?” he asked when he realized Dean wasn’t going to continue. His voice was soft, already a little forgiving, clearly interested in hearing Dean out only that Dean didn’t know what he wanted to say. Christ, Dean was an asshole.

“When did you, uh,” Dean said against his best intentions, figuring that he could at least catch Cas in a lie, in some inconsistency, “realize, that you, uh …” Dean couldn’t finish it up. Couldn’t commit.

Cas for quiet for a moment. Then he rolled his head skywards, understanding Dean easily as ever. “If I had to pick a time,” he said, “I’d probably choose … Purgatory.”

“Purgatory?” Dean blurted out, turning to face Cas.

“The first time,” Cas clarified mildly. That had been years ago, they had more years between them now then they’d had _before_ Purgatory. At Dean’s staring Cas shrugged awkwardly, a simple lurching gesture. “In my defense I’d never been in love before. I didn’t know what signs to look for.”

“You mean,” Dean realized. “You were— _before_ that.” He got one of those sad smiles in return.

“It’s not, ah, _challenging_ to fall in love with you,” Cas said. He was talking really low, his voice would’ve been a mumble if the words weren’t so clear. “Michael mentioned once that me saving you from Hell was something you valued, perhaps to your detriment. I never told you I feel, or felt, very much the same way.” Christ, Cas was basically saying he’d started to fall back then. Dean needed a paper bag.

“So why didn’t you come back with me if you loved me so damn much.” Dean tried not to sound hurt, like some jilted lover, but probably didn’t succeed in that respect. He’d thought he was losing his mind with Cas gone, couldn’t sleep from the guilt. Even in the worst parts of Purgatory, fighting next to Cas and Benny, Dean had felt a kind of peace he hadn’t felt before, or since. Going back there had reminded him of it all.

“That’s a good question,” Cas offered, voice neutral like they were considering some esoteric philosophical questions and not something that mattered so much it pounded in Dean’s veins. “You weren’t wrong when you said I was a burden, Dean. I wanted to atone more than I wanted you.” Great. Dean had no idea what to do with that.

He’d probably hated himself more than he’d ever loved Dean. Not that Dean could blame him for that. “Well,” Dean said with a snort. “Don’t do me any favours. And, for what it’s worth,” Dean pressed on, because he didn’t think it was worth all that much, “you were never a burden to us.”

“Liability,” Cas amended. Couldn’t argue that.

“I would’ve taken it anyway, you know,” Dean muttered, words slipping past gritted teeth. He’d had to, at the end of the day, when Cas had gotten plucked out of Purgatory by Naomi, brainwashed to kill Dean. Dean had gotten the shit kicked out of him and not even a goodbye from the guy who supposedly loved him, even then.

“Yeah,” Cas said, sad and resigned. “I know.” Dean wrung his wrist with his opposite hand, hating this. He was too old to feel this way, so wrung out.

“Why?” Dean asked, because this was what had really been bothering him, these past few weeks.

“Why what?” Cas asked, squinting.

“Me,” Dean said. Of all the people in the world that Cas could get the warm and fuzzies for, Dean didn’t deserve it. Hell, even his brother was a bigger catch, thoughtful where Dean was brutal, forgiving where Dean was some unending pit of violence. Cas had had six billion plus people to choose from. “Guess it was my good looks,” Dean joked, breathless.

To Dean’s credit, Cas smiled at that. “I never stood a chance.”

Right. God. “Well,” Dean said, swallowing. “Guess you angels were always suckers for all of God’s creatures, huh.”

“Dean,” Cas started, reaching out tentatively.

“I’m not fishing for compliments here,” Dean muttered, interrupting. He didn’t need Cas to tell him he hadn’t aged a day since Hell, that he was still the good looking brother. Dean needed to joke about it, but it was getting harder to.

Dean just suspected, even if Cas genuinely felt like this, there was probably a component of it all that wasn’t him. He knew Cas … was pretty caring for an angel, even if he was shit at it. But the whole ‘in love’ thing. Just wasn’t something Dean could wrap his brain around. It stretched credibility.

Sure, Cas could love Dean. Dean loved Cas. Dean loved _lots_ of people. They’d known each other for more than a decade; if Cas wasn’t attached by this point, which frequently he didn’t seem to be anyhow, something would be wrong. But Cas hadn’t tossed around a quick ‘I love you, man’. He’d laid out all the laundry. Dean just didn’t think it was really his.

Cas talked about love like it’d been something that had happened to him, and Dean suspected it was. That same compulsion Dean had felt towards Amara while she’d wanted him. Angels making John and Mary Winchester fall in love, when Dean remembered having to comfort her as a kid on the occasions where John left them. Chuck loved a good story, and Heaven wasn’t above making the pieces fit.

Cas had been quiet. “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” he said at last.

“What if it’s not you,” Dean spoke up. “What if it’s God. I mean, one helluva plot twist, right?” He laughed weakly.

“Not if you were paying attention,” Cas said, a little offended. Dean grinned, lazy, not sure how to feel.

“You’re afraid,” Cas realized all of a sudden. “That all I’ve ever done for you and your brother was because of God.” Dean was ready to argue and bluster but realized Cas got it in one.

“Well, I don’t know a lot of things,” Cas grumbled, “but I know this: everything I’ve ever done was precisely what I _wasn’t_ supposed to do. And that includes falling in love with you.”

“Gee, you sure know how to make a guy feel special, Cas,” Dean muttered, cheeks heating up all the same.

“You _are_ special, though you and Sam never seemed to enjoy that fact,” Cas said, in that earnest grumpy way of his. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But still, I like to think that the decisions I made were my own.” Oh yeah. The whole ‘free will’ thing.

“That sounds pretty human,” Dean warned him. Cas just smiled, and it was a nice one.

“That’s not the worst thing,” Cas decided. And Dean couldn’t argue with that. Cas was pretty good at making bad decisions. Dean guessed it made sense that he could add himself to that list. But yeah, sitting together with Cas, Dean couldn’t feel a scrap of God or pre-ordained order about it at all. Too bad Dean was the only one getting anything out of it.

(v)

Thing was, Dean’s never been in an upward spiral. He read about it once, how the universe trends towards disorder or, in Dean’s case, absolute fucking bullshit. Really, it was only a matter of time before they lost another one. Winchesters attracted death like flies and honey, like a house on fire.

Sam took it bad for once. Locked himself up in his room. No talking. Sam was always one to take death in stride. Apparently, he always thought the worst was gonna happen, so when it happened he was braced for it. Or maybe he got the satisfaction of being right, at least. Meanwhile, Dean could never get used to it. Each hit stung as bad as the first. He had more experience with it. But, Dean was the one hanging out with Cas in the kitchen, drinking maybe, but he wasn’t alone at least.

“He’s still in the Bunker, right?” Dean asked Cas at one point, afraid that Sam was gonna steal the keys and bolt, do something stupid.

“Yes,” Cas replied after a moment of consideration. “He’s just suffering.” Like that was supposed to make Dean feel better. Then, to ice the cake, Cas said, “It’s not something you can change.”

Dean nodded. “Good talk,” he bit out, forcing a quick smile, moving to leave the room with a couple beers in tow, suddenly feeling too guilty to stay, but Cas trapped him by his shoulder. They really didn’t touch much anymore.

“Dean, would you ever listen to me tell you why I love you?” Cas asked, almost curious. Dean felt his mouth turn dry as he stared back at Cas, eyes wide and earnest. Up close, Cas looked older. Weary. Wrinkled, even, somehow, like he’d made home in this body, really lived in it.

“Because you have shit taste in men,” Dean said, almost folding over where he stood, breath coming out in one long sigh, setting down his bottles. Cas smiled a little at that, even though it wasn’t that much of a joke. Maybe it was funny because it’s true. Observational humour.

“I’m not a perfect man myself,” he offered, joking. And then, seriously, “Dean, you make me want to be better. For myself. For you. You always have.” And if that didn’t feel like something else Dean had to carry. Because sure, Dean wasn’t a good guy. But he’d always tried. And he’d nearly always failed in some capacity.

“I’m not,” Dean said, almost buckling under the weight of the truth, “I’m not strong enough for all this. I never was.”

“It’s a good thing, I suppose, that you’re not alone,” Cas replied. “That you have your brother. Your allies.”

“I’ll bite, _what_ allies?” Dean asked. And maybe it was cruel to ask Cas that, since it wasn’t Cas’s fault, and Cas took the hit just as hard as anyone all the same. For every one person that came back, Bobby, Mary, Cas, hell even Eileen, because they crossed paths with the Winchesters, there was a mass grave for all the people who died for the exact same reason. And the ones that came back weren’t guaranteed to stay.

“You’ll always have me,” Cas replied, open, earnest. Even Cas had left him, though it was evident that Cas had never wanted to. Cas had just felt so unwanted, so mistreated, so hurt, that he’d dumped Dean just to make Dean realize how he’d been acting. Hadn’t been the first time. And Dean never learned. And here he was, again, dragging Cas down into the mud, drinking away misery that wasn’t even rightfully his own. Cas had died, and would die because of the deal he’d made, and here he was, indulging in Dean’s self-pity.

“Cas, you’re not even happy here,” Dean squeezed out, almost begging Cas to realize that Dean couldn’t give him what he needed, what he wanted. The deal with the Empty had crystallized that. And Dean hated the thought that Cas was just hanging around because he felt some kind of way about him. That Dean was always going to treat Cas less than he deserved, and Cas had even been banking on it when he’d made that deal.

“It’s not your job to make me happy,” Cas said, tilting his head to the side like he was trapped between being horrified by or pitying all of Dean’s baggage.

“But why stick around if you got better places to be?” Dean asked suddenly frustrated. Anywhere else but here would be better for Cas, _to_ Cas, and Cas had paid his dues. He could afford to head down south, find a sandy beach somewhere to get sun drunk at.

“What, aside from my failing Grace, the fact that God is a villain that needs to be vanquished, and that the world is ending yet again?” Cas asked dryly.

“Alright,” Dean allowed. Cas’d made his point.

But Cas just went on. “I’d like to be here,” he said, softly, which was about the kindest thing he could have ever said. “I suspect some people were just never meant to be happy.” Dean shrugged a little awkwardly at that. It was true in his case. Even Sam had issues just having Eileen. It didn't have to be like that for Cas, aside from the Empty. Cas just deserved more than … _this_ , and there wasn’t much Cas could do to change Dean’s mind on that.

Cas tilted his head to the side a little to catch Dean’s eye, his attention. Shyly, Cas glanced away again, offering something honest. “But … it’s true that … when I _am_ happy, it’s with you. It always has been.”

Dean leaned in and kissed him without thinking.

Cas stepped back before Dean could really do anything. Just a whisper of mouth against mouth, Cas’s chapped lips and cologne. Cas looked more startled than anything, eyes wide, almost sad. He glanced away from Dean, down at the booze on the table beside them, clearly not trusting that this was just Dean. Clearly not trusting Dean.

But that was kind of alright. If they made it through, if they figured out what to do with the Empty, Dean could convince him that he could trust this. Because Dean could feel something building in his throat. Something warm and light and hopeful and Cas’s expression was softening, looking at Dean, at the crazy happy expression Dean was probably making.

Dean couldn’t say I love you, not face to face, not looking at Cas so boldly in the eye. But he thought it. He thought it like a mantra, loud and clear, addressed to the guy standing across from him. Because it was true, damn it, and all the pain Dean had ever felt about the guy sharing his beer suddenly made sense in the context of it. He loved Cas.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cas said softly, all choked up and disbelieving. He was kind of wrong about that. Sure, Dean wasn’t obligated to feel the way he was feeling right now. Dean didn’t even know what to call it, how to quantify it, if it was even something he could do something with. But it wasn’t out of obligation. And it wasn’t because of God. And it was the truth.

“You were right about one thing,” Dean said, reaching across to pinch the cloth of Cas’s sleeve as Cas looked away from him. “We’re real.”

Cas took in a shaky breath and Dean didn’t move in to kiss him again. Though he wanted to. “Hey,” Dean spoke up, hanging back quietly till Cas looked him in the eye. Dean gave him a smile. “We’ll fix this, okay? _All_ of this. Together.” Cas didn’t say anything and Dean jerked him lightly by his arm. “Alright?”

Cas looked at him then, smile stretching carefully across his face, creasing the laughter lines by his eyes. Standing there in the cozy dark of the Bunker, alone with Cas smiling at him, for once Dean felt like he understood why someone could love him.

“Alright, Dean,” Cas replied. And call Dean cocky, but he liked to think that he’d managed to make Cas happy just then, if only a little bit. There’d be another day after tomorrow, and Dean could do this much, brushing elbows with Cas as they put his bottles near the recycling. He could do this, and tomorrow he could do it again, until Cas finally trusted him on it. Until finally they could be done with all this, one way or another.

Dean kind of got it. Why Cas wasn’t literally dying from happiness being kissed by the guy he supposedly loved. They lived the lives of the walking wounded. Dean wasn’t happy either, not now, not after what had just happened, and especially in the light of what would come next. But it felt good to be honest for once. And maybe Dean _was_ drunk, maybe sober he’d shrink to know what he’d done to Cas. But, for now, he was alright and he couldn’t bring himself to regret that.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao this is a season 15 coda but if this doesnt make any sense or has contradictions i've legit not watched this show since season 9 i'm just going off of spoilers ;))


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